Running diary: Poland game one

To think that Team Polska backers might someday look back on the Croatia match as the highlight of this Cup…

Okay, i know that the immortal Bill Simmons does this whenever there’s a lot of rollickin’ good sports on the teevee, but i was employing the technique as far back as 1991 for the Greatest (American) Football Game Ever Played, the Persian Gulf War Bowl. Herewith is a running diary of Poland’s opening game in World Cup 2006, as seen by your man in Budapest, Os Davis.

Pre-pregame. A funny thing happened before kickoff. My friend Steve calls me up (that’s not the funny bit – what for it) after the demolishment of Costa Rica and says, “hey, so did you find where the Poland match is playing?”

“Nah, those bitches at RTL Klub did something weird and put it on some special cable network.”

“Well, check this out. I was looking for the basketball game [more on this later] and in place of Sport 2 was this thing called Sport Klub –”

Wait a minute, Sport Klub? I thought. That’s the RTL Klub sports netw–

I flipped stations. There it was: Two underdressed dudes – as is the usual wont here in Magyarország – discussing just how awesome Team Germany looks. Cool. Thanks, Steve. I guess now i should take back my rant about those crap merchants at RTL…

Nah. It’s still teevee.

Pregame. The Deutschland duden indeed looked amazing, like a typical German squad determined to win it all: Simply a football machine. But i don’t mean that in a bad way. Sure, while Brazil plays with exuberance and Italia with emotion and Argentina with bloody vengeance in mind, Germany resembles eleven cyberguys targeting their opposition for termination. When Klinsmann whooped it up after the second goal, i thought the pods had stolen his stoic-faced body.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, though, you have to admit it’s pretty football. Such slick no-nonsense play reminds me of the best years of American football’s New England Patriots, the late 1990s New York Yankees, or o yes those Chicago Bulls. Klose? Unstoppable. Frings’ goal in the 87th? Unstoppable. Germany? Scary. Really scary. Let the whimpering begin.

And then this bozo on Sport Klub BRINGS UP THE COLOMBIA GAME! No joke.

The first half.

1st minute. Wow, Poland is sporting some cool unis. Always looking clean in the mostly whites, the names in red are in funky lowercase. gotta love that. and boruc has on a swell burgundy-colored jersey.

1st minute. The game’s first foul in committed by Ecuador’s Castillo. He didn’t do it, he protests, maintaining a 358-year run of athletes never committing a foul in any sport.

3rd minute. A bit of a threat from Zurawski. Hey, our guys are playing with enthusiasm. They may want this thing.

8th minute. Bak goes down and o boy does he look hurt. He’s revived with some water. I have a theory about why football players, particularly those of certain teams (ahem, Argentina), milk the hell out of falling on the pitch: I think they’re just taking a break. Football is the most tiring of sports this side of the iron man triathlon, after all. But on the other hand, we’re eight minutes in. How do you say, “Come on, you wuss!” in Polish?

11th minute. The first shot of Coach Janas. Damn, what a brutal tie. Fat, puke blue … he had to have gone to the back of the closet to the commie outfits to find this one. Janas looks grave early, the diametric opposite of Mr. Cool, Ecuador Coach Luis Saurez, who appears as though he’s only missing a proper stogie to be chillin’ on the beach. Well…wearing a suit.

15th minute. Jacek Krzynowek becomes the first Pole to launch a satellite for orbit around Neptune when he takes a free kick. Fifteen minutes’ worth of continuous Polish fight songs end. You can almost notice the Ecuador fans – that’s them, the patch of yellow over there.

17th minute. Krzynowek still looks embarrassed.

17th minute. Boruc comes waaaaay out to stop Tenorio, and the collective heart of Poland skips a beat.

19th minute. Zurawski punts a stillborn opportunity into the Oort Cloud. Another shot of Janas looking grave; is that smoke coming out of his ears?

20th minute. A free kick attempt by Ecuador amounts to nothing, but Tenorio’s involved in the threat. In the last five minutes, he’s been everywhere. I’m starting to get that feeling you get in football when you realize that the guy who’s gotten four or five closeups in two minutes is about to put one it.

21st minute. Sure enough. Goal. Tenorio. Ecuador 1, Poland 0. Tenorio headed it in off a header pass, surprising Boruc. Viewers and loyalists are no doubt a bit surprised, too, and visions of that 2-0 loss in game one in Cup 2002 enter the mind…

25th minute. A nice attack can’t be completed by Ebi “The Hash Bomber” Smolarek. No shots of Janas, who must be smoldering by now. The Hungarian color commentator makes the obligatory first proclamation – surely present in every sport, in every language – of “nagyon sok idő van.” (“There’s plenty of time left.”) In Hungarian, though, it can sound pessimistic. Of course, everything in Hungarian can sound pessimistic.

26th minute. There is no beer in the flat (D’oh!) and so i decided to, let’s say, for young impressionable hooligans may be reading – make a bowl of keroauckian tea. I need it. Nagyon sok idő van be damned – Poland’s play is going flat and this could well be a long-ass fifty-five minutes.

27th minute. Ah, that’s better. Still 1-0? Bummer.

28th minute. Tonorio is found just inside the box, misses. A stat goes up: Ecuador is up 4-1 in shots taken.

30th minute. On a breakway attack by Poland, Hurtado commits a foul. He protests. He didn’t do it.

36th minute. Tonorio goes down, yellow card goes up on Ebi who, with the exception of his participation nine or ten minutes ago, has been mostly invisible. The Hash Bomber’s gaining a reputation for being one of those dudes with two playing personalities. One wonders which will show up for game two…

37th minute. Free kick. After deflection, Boruc grabs it. Again, millions of Bialo-czerwoni fans experience heartside flippy flops. How many doctors are there in Poland?

39th minute. Shot of Janas. He’s … smiling. Huh? At what?

42nd minute. A corner by Poland. Nothing. A second corner. Nothing. A free kick. Nothing.

45th minute. Poland conjures up another nice-looking threat. Nothing. Corner. Nothing.

First half ends. Score at half: Ecuador 1, Poland nothing.

Halftime. Because incessant reruns of goals and misses are ill and annoying if your team is the butt of the joke, i flip it over to the NBA Finals game one, presented in Hungary on tape delay. Do you know how hard it is not to find out the result of the game if you go online? Plus, my son’s a Dallas Mavericks fan. I spent a Friday without reading email.

Watching the NBA in Europe is great. Why? No commercials. Shots of cheerleaders instead, like i’m seeing now – nice. Plus, i know as much as the play-by-play guy. Great stuff; they should do it more often. Here in Hungary, we get almost no regular season games so that local sports stations may broadcast NFL football, which must have a huge market…

It’s a compelling finals between the Mavs and the Miami Heat. Shaq is still awesome, as is newbie Dwayne Wade (sweet name), but it’s peaking Dirk Nowitski who’s the focus right now. Germany may be looking at a banner year in sport. Dirk and company took the European Basketball Championship earlier and could well lead the Mavericks to the promised land. Combined with the usual solid performance at the Winter Olympics, Michael Schumacher’s strong (if not Schumie-level dominant) 2006, World Cup host status and a football squad that figures to go far, Germany may declare itself sport capital of the world after taking the 2006 FIBAs.

I leave the game at the end of the third quarter. 70-68 Dallas. See how much i love the Cup?

Second half. I’m actually muttering “Here we go Poland, here we go! Po-land!” to myself.

49th minute. Team Poland and their backers are impressive and aggressive again. Good. Both need to be. I may believe in the whole “almost-home field advantage” thing. The Ecuador folks are mostly seen and not heard.

52nd minute. Krzynowek bungles a corner, and the first hoots of the game waft up. What was that about aggressive?

53rd minute. For a tenth of a second, Krzynowek redeems himself with a bulleted goal from the corner of the box. But no. Way offside.

55th minute. Damn, the fans are restless. I can feel it from here and i’m like 1200 kilometers away.

57th minute. A threat spearheaded by Ebi is broken up. The corner – “nem jó” or “no good.” But you figured that.

61st minute. An Ecuador attack comes to nothing, but i may be pavlovianally shaking at the mention of Tonorio for the remainder of the tournament.

62nd minute. A shot of Janas shows him to be zen-like over there on the sidelines, perhaps channeling Phil Jackson. Then come two attacks, one wrenchingly close by Zurawski. Nothing. But promising.

63rd minute. I love it when these football “injuries” get booed.

64th minute. Another Poland attack for naught. I’m feeling a glimmering of That Feeling about Zurawski, though…

67th minute. Hurtado goes down and damn does the crowd jeer. Hee hee.

68th minute. Hundreds of millions of Europeans are watching Suarez take off his shoe, look around in it and put it back on.

69th minute. POH-LAND! POH-LAND! the backers egg on, but it’s starting to sound impatient.

72nd minute. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

75th minute. A stat flashes. Shots on goal, Ecuador 4-0. Tell you what, though, the Polska crowd is winning. If you came into the telecast now without knowledge of the score, you’d call it 1-0 Poland. If only…

76th minute. And now a serious threat from Mendez and company. Nice save by Boruc.

78th minute. Krzynowek comes out. Is he happy or what? He looks embarrassed. A quick look at the b-ball and sure enough, i get cheerleaders. Sudden thoughts: Do they know the score? Do they care? Are they just faking it, guys?

80th minute. Ah, hell. Goal. Delgado. “No offside on the play,” comments the Magyar. Argh. Flashbacks of 2002.

81th minute. Contractually obligated shots of fans. The Polish side: Some pretty blonde gals, and a picture is worth, etc. etc. But wait a minute! The Ecuadorians are awake, alive, well, and loud!

0.55 minutes remaining. Nowitski and Dallas are polishing off Miami. Can we play Shaq’s guys in a consolation game?

82nd minute. Zurawski goes out. Sigh. The commentators mention that suddenly “a legaktivabb a lengyel csapat…” or roughly “this is the most active the Poland team has been…” Great timing. Ebi shoots, to no avail.

84th minute. Some amazing ball control in the box by Jelen and off the freaking crossbar.

85th minute. Jelen to the Bomber. Nothing.

86th minute. Shot of a sad blonde Polish fan. I’m sorry, baby.

87th minute. Sub Pawel Brozek shoots from the right side of the box. OFF THE POST!

Extra time. “Luck was not with the Polish team today,” proclaims the color pallbearer . Janas is shown for inevitably the final team. He looks a bit like a bird of prey. Why don’t i have beer?

Game over. Ecuador 2, Poland 0. I flip channels to “Cool TV” and check out the Hungarian-dubbed version of Doctor Who. I wish i had a time machine and go back to say, 1982…